


they were kids that i once knew

by PrinceDrew



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: AU where both Evan and Connor died, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Canonical Character Death, Car Accidents, Death, Depression, Funerals, Gen, Grief, Heavy Angst, If you want anything tagging let me know, Mourning, Overdose, Suicide, jared-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 04:15:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13310217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceDrew/pseuds/PrinceDrew
Summary: Evan Hansen dies on a cold August day, surrounded by trees taller than he ever could imagine, and he dies of a broken neck and a broken mind.Connor Murphy dies just after midnight, having overdosed on pills. It’s painless, at least. Pitiful, maybe.Two boys commit suicide, only one of which is recognised as such. They die two weeks apart, and the suicide that is called a suicide occurs on the day that the unheralded suicide is announced.Two boys are dead. The world is not.There’s a story in that.





	they were kids that i once knew

**Author's Note:**

> So this story gets into some very heavy stuff, and please, if you don't think you can handle, don't read it. Check the tags to see if you think you'd be okay with reading this fic. Connor's suicide is described, so please, please exercise caution.

Evan Hansen dies on a cold August day, surrounded by trees taller than he ever could imagine, and he dies of a broken neck and a broken mind.

For hours, he lays there, as if he belongs at a foot of a tree, surrounded by flowers, forget-me-nots and little white blossoms, and blades of grass that dance in the soft breeze, the dappled sun shining on his face. As if he was just tired, and took a nap on a summer day.

He’s dead, of course. He can’t feel the sun any more than he can think.

His phone rings, once, twice, somehow having survived the fall by the mercy of being in his jacket pocket. Then it stops.

No one hears it.

It’s only when the sun starts to set does a dog walker discover the corpse of a boy. She calls emergency services, waits for the police and paramedics, is questioned briefly by said police, and then for her, it's over.

For a mother working at the hospital, it’s the end of everything.

Evan Hansen is buried two weeks later, four days before high school starts again. Jared Kleinman spends the funeral holding Heidi’s hand and glaring daggers at the man who dared to called himself Evan’s father and speak at the funeral as if he knew him.

Anger, he finds, is easier to deal with than grief.

His days seem emptier now. 

He refuses to imagine what it’s like for Heidi, who is working now more than ever. When she’s not, she’s found at his family’s house, or they’re at her house, small for two people, too large for one. It’s - it’s weird, sitting on her sofa next to his mom. Unusual. Wrong.

He can’t count the amount of times he stands outside the room of a dead boy, trying to muster up the courage to open the door.

He wants to know to know if it’s the same.

On the day school starts again, the seniors and juniors are herded into an assembly, because the freshman don’t know of Evan Hansen and the sophomores don’t care. Jared Kleinman keeps his head down, feeling sick to his stomach.

The death is announced.

The silence itself is deathly.

No.

The silence is apathy, Jared thinks, trying to hold back a sob, a scream, a shout. They care because it is a death, and you’re meant to care about death, especially if it’s someone you’re meant to know. They may feel sad, because they’re meant to. They are not sad because they are actually sad.

There’s a minutes silence.

An announcement that they’re holding a bake sale in memoriam of Evan, to do something or other with the money. Something to do with the music wing. Or planting a tree in the school’s ‘peace garden’.

Jared thinks to himself they could do either of those things without Evan’s name attached.

Connor Murphy, who is sitting at the back of the hall, does not care about a dead boy whose face he only sort of knows. Connor Murphy, who is tired and angry and gone, cares more about not being caught with the pills stashed away in his bag. 

Connor Murphy, who gave up long before Evan Hansen, wonders if he’ll get an assembly just like he did.

At lunch, he collides with Jared Kleinman in the corridor. He expects a response, something barked, an unfunny joke about how he’s a ticking time bomb ready to shoot up the school.

He gets nothing from Jared but a mumbled apology and an averted gaze.

It troubles him, but he doesn’t think as to why.

In English, he remembers that Jared was friends with the dead kid. Was probably his only friend.

Connor does not wait for his sister after school like he is supposed to. He drives around town instead, stopping only at his home to sneak in and leave his mobile phone beside his bed before leaving again.

He keeps driving, and driving, and he thinks about the dead kid.

He tries to remember what he looked like. There was a photo in the assembly, his yearbook photo from last year. The kid didn’t look comfortable in it. It looked like he was smiling because he was told to smile, but he wasn’t used to smiling, so it just looked awkward, and off, and weird. He hadn’t been smiling with his eyes.

The thought crosses Connor’s mind that maybe the kid was like him. Maybe the kid wanted to die.

He wonders why he’s even thinking about him.

The sun sets, the sky now dark. Connor stops by the public park, and leaves his car in the parking lot and leaves his bag in the car. Takes the pills with him. For a moment, he considers leaving the keys to the car inside, if that would be simpler, but decides against it. 

It is not the first time he has done this.

He sits down underneath a tree, far away from the playground. Kids don’t deserve to see his death, his body, his corpse, even though he doubts any are out at this time. Then he takes off the cap to the pills, pours them into his hands, and he swallows them dry.

And he waits.

And he thinks.

He thinks about the dead kid again. Evan. Wonders if they’ll meet in the afterlife. If there is an afterlife. If it even matters that there’s an afterlife, because it’s not like he’d be able to do anything there.

Pain begins to grow within him. Vomit rises in his throat.

He thinks about his family. Hopes that they’ll be okay, because there’s a part of him, the part of him that’s still a scared twelve-year-old who didn’t know what was happening to him, that still cares about them. Thinks about his sister, his father. Wonders if they’ll mourn him or not.

Zoe did not visit him the last time he was in a ward. There is nothing in him that can blame her for it.

His mother will cry. That he knows.

He shuts his eyes.

The last attempt he had made had been in a panic. Too rushed. Too scared. He’s calm this time. He’s ready.

His last thought is vague, half-formed and translucent, gone from his mind easily, but there.

_I did not want to die this way._

A dog walker finds him.

It’s not the one who found Evan. But they know each other. Funny, how life can work like that.

Heidi Hansen is on her break in the hospital when a boy who’s her son’s age is taken in. He’s alive, but not really, and she can tell the attempts of the paramedics are to keep him around long enough for people to say goodbye rather than to let him see the sun rise again.

He’s young. He still has a baby face, like Evan did, but skinny, skinny like doesn’t have the energy to eat, and he’s familiar, like she’s seen him in one of Evan’s yearbooks.

It hurts to watch.

She doesn’t stay long enough to see if they succeed or not. The sobs and screams so close to hers that echo around not five minutes later tell her all she needs to know.

Connor Murphy dies in hospital just after midnight, having overdosed on pills. It’s painless, at least. Pitiful, maybe. But ugly. Certainly ugly.

The Murphy family stay up until the morning. They don’t speak to one another.

Zoe Murphy tries to go to school. Her father does not let her. Says that it’s family time. Time they need to spend together, like they would fall apart if they didn’t. Most of the day is spent in her room, listening to her parents try and sort funeral arrangements, because you don’t make those sorts of plans in advance for your children. You’re not supposed to, at least. 

They argue over cremation or burial. She wonders why it even matters.

Her dad wins the argument. They decide to bury the boy she once called a brother in a box too expensive for its use in a cemetery that’s close enough to visit, but far away that they don’t have to think about him.

She doesn’t return to school for two more days.

There’s an assembly called for Connor. The same routine as Evan’s.

His death is announced. There’s silence. An official minutes silence. Then the announcement of something. Not a bake sale this time, but a donation drive. For a mental health charity. The Murphy’s chose it, the principal says.

Zoe bites back the urge to say she had no choice in the matter.

They haven’t even done Evan’s bake sale yet, Jared thinks, unable to care about Connor Murphy.

There’s mandatory sessions with the guidance counsellor for students deemed at risk, such as Zoe Murphy. Jared Kleinman does not get one of these sessions, even though his ~~family friend~~ his best friend is dead, and he’s not eating and he no longer feels right.

He overhears Zoe complaining about the sessions later.

She doesn’t need them, he hears. She’s _fine_. She’s coping. The only useful thing they gave her were some pamphlets she can give to her mom and the assurance that she was under something called special consideration, which meant her teachers took into account her circumstances and -

_Bang!_

People jump, and move away from him. Zoe Murphy and her friends disappear into the crowd. He can see Alana Beck in the corner of his eye shoot him a look. One of worry, of compassion, of caution, he can’t tell.

Pain radiates from his hand, and blood drips down his knuckles. He hadn’t realised he had punched the locker. Hadn’t realised he caused the noise.

The bell rings for class. People move around him. He’s not sure why he got so upset.

He hopes he hasn’t become the new Connor. He hopes there will never be a new Connor.

Lessons are hard to concentrate in. In computer science, he finds himself not doing anything. He can’t even bring himself to play solitaire when the teacher explains the basics of coding if and while loops.

Later, when everyone else is working, the teacher asks him if he’s okay. It’s the first time someone who isn’t related to him has asked that. Jared just shrugs, and mumbles something about not sleeping well. The teacher frowns, but doesn’t push, and Jared sort of wishes he did.

Jared overhears his mom and Heidi talking about it that night. Talking about Connor.

“Have you heard about the Murphy’s son?” his mom asks Heidi.

There’s a moment of silence.

“I was in the emergency room when he was taken in,” Heidi replies. “But I wasn’t - I wasn’t there. For the end.” A pause. “I might visit them.”

There’s another moment, and the conversation changes. His mom asks about Heidi’s plans for the weekend - working, she’s working again - and that’s that.

If they were anyone else, the conversation would have continued. The conversation would have turned to Evan, and the school, and doesn’t it look bad that they had two students die so close together? It’s such a shame that they were both so young. Only seventeen, with their lives ahead of them. It’s such a shame that their families have to deal with this.

Such a shame.

Jared goes to bed early that night. He spends most of it awake, staring at the wall beside his bed in the dark.

Two boys commit suicide, only one of which is recognised as such. They die just shy of three weeks apart, and the suicide that is called a suicide occurs on the day that the unheralded suicide is announced.

There’s a story in that.

Two boys are dead. The world is not.

It starts with tweet by Alana Beck telling people to remember Connor and to remember Evan. It starts with a memorial and an obituary in the local newspaper, mourning the loss of yet another teenager, another life gone so soon. It starts with a school donation drive and bake sale, a newsletter on the website and an email sent around to parents again.

It starts with some intern in California roaming the internet, searching for a story, when they happen across the tweet.

The story is found.

The story is wrong, but it’s found.

An article is posted the next morning. Connor and Evan were friends, it declares. Connor killed himself because he couldn’t live without Evan, it declares. It’s a symbol of everything wrong with how America deals with the mental health of teenagers, it declares.

The story spreads.

Alana’s instructions morph into a hashtag, trending in in their local area at first, then their state, then all of America, only in America. Other countries have their own to worry about.

#RememberConnor. #RememberEvan.

The article is re-posted, rewritten, shared, clicked, liked. Discussions are held on TV shows about it. There’s a spike of donations to mental health charities for teens. People post their own stories about their own Connor Murphy.

Everyone at their school reads it. Everyone at their school believes it.

How could they not? It makes sense. The two loner kids were friends. The only one the other had. No one knew them apart from themselves. One of them died, and the other follows. As a narrative, it makes sense. 

Even Zoe believes it. A little. The idea of Connor having a friend is one that she finds nice. She still hates him. Hates what he did. Hates that the story ended like it did, with them hating each other. But the idea of him having a friend is still nice.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t block everyone she doesn’t know or put her accounts onto private. Interview requests go ignored, and her parents ignore them as well. Tags are blocked, whitelisted, gone from her feed.

She doesn’t care to share the country’s grief for a boy they didn’t know.

Connor’s funeral is held. Private, family only.

Her father doesn’t cry, even as they lower the coffin, and Zoe’s not sure if she does either. Her mother’s tears still continue to fall, she continues to sob like her heart is still torn in two and it’s as though she’ll never stop.

But she does.

Jared Kleinman does not find the idea of Connor Murphy and Evan Hansen being friends to be ‘nice’.

He finds it disgusting.

When he first read the article, he felt like he was going to throw up. He comments on the article, too angry to be taken seriously, telling the author that they got nothing right and are a disgrace to Evan’s memory.

He was Evan’s friend. Not Connor Murphy.

When #RememberConnor and #RememberEvan started to trend, he posts again and again that the article is wrong. Wrong, wrong, _wrong_. His posts get buried by the flood of well-meaning strangers.

The conversation turns national. People talk about Evan as though he was nothing but a prop in Connor’s story. They mention his ‘tragic death’ and that he was ‘gone too soon’, then talk about Connor, how his death could have been prevented if someone noticed, if someone stepped in.

Jared can’t shake the feeling within him that Connor would have died no matter what. He’s not angry enough to post it, at least.

There’s more tweets and posts for #RememberConnor than there is for #RememberEvan.

Invisible, even in death.

He understands why Evan is still being ignored. Suicide can be prevented. Accidents can’t. Connor is something that people can talk about, can relate to. Jared can't begrudge people for that. Can’t begrudge them to connecting to a tragedy like that.

They shouldn’t have brought Evan in though. Shouldn’t have ruined his memory.

So he does what he can.

Evan and Connor weren’t friends, he keeps repeating to everyone, but mostly himself. Connor didn’t even go to Evan’s funeral. Besides, Evan was fine. His death was accidental, not a suicide, like Connor’s. And Evan wasn’t like Connor. Not at all.

Evan wasn’t - Evan wasn’t _like that_.

Evan was - he was - was -

Evan wasn’t happy, Jared realises, and it’s like icy poison to his stomach. 

He excuses himself from the lesson, shaking, feeling like he’s strung together with spider silk, and goes to the toilet, where he locks himself in a stall.

Of course Evan wasn’t happy. How could he be?

No one was actually nice to Evan. Not even him, not really. How many times did he ignore Evan just because he wanted to look ‘cool’? How many lunches did Even spend alone in the library because Jared was sitting at a table full of people?

Did Evan text him? That week, that month, that summer, did Evan text him? Did he?

He can’t remember.

Jared Kleinman was not a good friend, he thinks. Jared Kleinman, he thinks, he realises, is a bad friend and a worse person and it’s no wonder people don’t talk to him because if he had the option he wouldn’t talk to himself.

Did he text Evan?

He’s crying. Sobbing in the abandoned bathroom of his school like he’s in second grade and he fell over at recess and scraped his knee. Back then, Evan hid with him. Tried to help. Wiped a wet paper towel over it and gave him a hug.

There’s no one there to help him.

There’s no one there to hear him.

He gets up. Wipes his face with his sleeve and flushes the toilet, even though he didn’t use it. Walks. Walks out of the bathroom and through the school and into the student car park. Unlocks his car, gets in. Doesn’t bother with his seatbelt.

Begins to drive away.

There’s no one there to see him leave.

Heidi is in the supermarket when she runs into Cynthia Murphy, although it’s not the Cynthia Murphy she recognises, not the Cynthia Murphy who appears in the paper for doing all that charitable work.

It’s the Cynthia Murphy who can’t get over her son’s death, the Cynthia Murphy who is tired and not sleeping and maybe drinking a little too much, the Cynthia Murphy who only got dressed today because she had to go shopping.

They reach for the same loaf of bread. It’s not the only one on the shelf, but their hands still collide, and they both recoil.

“Sorry,” Cynthia says, shaking her head like she’s dazed and confused. “Sorry. You take it. I’ll just - ”

She picks up the next one on the shelf, but doesn’t move to put in her basket, as if considering if she actually needs the loaf. Then she shakes her head, and places it in the basket.

“Cynthia,” she says as she turns to face Heidi, like she had been taught to introduce herself to everyone she meets. “Cynthia Murphy.”

Heidi just nods, and doesn’t say anything until her own loaf of bread is in the basket. Wholemeal, just like how Evan used to like it for his toast. Said it tasted better.

“I’m Heidi,” she says, and when confusion doesn’t lift from Cynthia’s face, she adds, “Evan’s mom.”

Cynthia softens. “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry to hear about your boy.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your son,” Heidi echoes, and Cynthia gives her an odd smile.

They walk around together. They don’t talk, but they stop when the other does. Cynthia doesn’t say anything about the fact Heidi has to exchange what she’s picked for smaller portions.

“Do you think it’s true?” she asks once they’re almost done. “Do you think our sons were friends?”

For a moment, Heidi considers it. She considers the idea of Evan having someone besides Jared, besides her, besides himself. She considers the idea of Evan doing normal teen things with his friend, like driving and talking and going on trips.

She misses him.

“It’d be nice if they were,” she says at last. “But - but we won’t ever know, will we? I didn’t know enough about Evan to know his friends.”

Cynthia nods. “Isn’t funny?” she asks, maybe to Heidi, maybe to herself, maybe to no one. “We didn’t even know who they were friends with.”

She insists on paying for Heidi’s groceries. There’s not enough in Heidi to argue about it.

As they leave, she tells Cynthia about the support group she goes to, for grieving families, for people who can’t quite move on. Says it might help Cynthia, and gives her phone number in case she wants more information.

“We’d be happy to have you there,” she says, then excuses herself to answer her phone.

The sobs of Jared Kleinman’s mother is enough to paralyse her.

Jared did not return to his class. Jared didn’t show up for his next lesson, or the lesson after that. Jared is not at home, and he’s not answering any of her calls.

Jared is missing.

Jared is at Ellison State Park.

He drove there, unsure of why, but he drove there, paid admission and parking, and it occurs to him as he walks through the trails in his trainers that this is something Evan would have done. Skip school to come look at trees.

He wants to laugh at that, but he hasn’t been able to laugh for a while.

For an hour, or maybe longer, he wanders around. Wonders what he’s looking for. A sign, maybe, that this place was changed when a kid - a kid he knew, his friend, his fucking best friend - died there.

He wonders if the park rangers working at the moment remember Evan.

Eventually, he happens across the place where Evan died. There’s still a tree there. A plaque in front of the tree. It says it’s in loving memory of Evan Hansen, with his birthday and his death date.

The tree was there long before Evan Hansen, Jared thinks.

He wants something more. He wants there to be a depression in the ground, an outline, a sign that tells him exactly where Evan Hansen fell. He wants scattered leaves, a broken branch, scratches down the bark of the tree.

Evan Hansen deserves more than a plaque on a tree, Jared thinks. Evan Hansen deserved more than he got.

Jared Kleinman leaves Ellison State Park, and keeps driving.

And driving.

And driving.

Every time he thinks of stopping, or slowing down, he remembers how little of Evan Hansen there is left in the world, how little people talk of him, how little people remember him, and he keeps driving.

He no longer feels like Jared Kleinman.

He feels broken. Awake. Alive. Scared. Shaking. He feels like a hundred things at once, and he can’t tell if he wants to laugh or cry from it all.

He keeps driving.

It occurs to him that soon, people will forget Connor Murphy. New things will trend, a new campaign will start, the hashtags will fade into obscurity. People will talk about some stupid thing a celebrity has done, or a new kid that died, or anything that else grabs their interest.

No one will care about two dead boys in two weeks. No one will ever care about Evan Hansen or Connor Murphy again. 

There are tears in his eyes, and he realises that today is the first time he has cried since Evan left.

Laughter and hysterics bubble up inside of him, and soon, he’s hysterical, laughing and crying all at once, almost yelling for Evan, Evan come see this, Evan please, you’ll love this, come see Jared fucking Kleinman crying over his best friend he never called a best friend, Evan, Evan, where the fuck are you Evan, why did you have to fucking leave me Evan, I wouldn’t leave you -

Jared Kleinman’s car skids, and hits a streetlight.

For a moment, he wishes he had died.

He crawls out of the car. Shards of glass cut his skin, and he’s struggling to breathe a little. Blood trickles down his arms as he looks at the crash.

The car is a write-off. Nothing can be salvaged from it. The streetlight is fine. Looks like it’s never been better. But the car - he’ll have to get a new one. If his parents let him have a new one. If he even gets anything from insurance.

Insurance. He has no idea why he wants to laugh at the idea of insurance.

_“JARED!”_

It’s not his mom’s voice screeching his name. But he knows it. Doesn’t bother to turn and look at who it is.

Heidi Hansen runs up to Jared, sobs and tears and worry caught in her throat, and she hugs him, pulls him in tight, and she’s nice, and warm, and she hugs just like she did when he was little.

“I - I - Your mom - so worried - shit, so so worried - and - and the crash -” She’s not making sense. She’s babbling. Both of them know this. “Couldn’t - Couldn’t cope - with a - with another one - no, not another.”

Guilt stabs at him.

“Sorry,” he says. He can’t explain anything. “Sorry.”

She pulls away. She’s frowning now, her grip on Jared tightening. 

“Do you know how long you’ve been?” Jared shakes his head. “Hours! You’ve been gone for hours! It’s almost sunrise, fuck, Jared, we have _police_ looking for you. Do you know how worried we’ve been?”

Sunrise.

Over twelve hours.

He doesn’t feel like he’s been gone twelve hours. He doesn’t feel like he was there enough to be gone twelve hours.

“And then - I saw the car and I - I thought the worse…” She stops frowning. Pulls him back into a hug, uncaring of the blood down his arms. “I’m just - you’re here. You’re alive. You’re okay.”

He’s not. He can’t remember the last time he was ever okay.

Shaking, still shaking, he hugs Heidi back. Closes his eyes and buries his face into her shoulder.

“Heidi?” he asks, and he’s small, he’s feeling so small, tiny, he’s a little kid without a friend. “I miss him.”

There’s a moment, and then Heidi is hugging him tighter.

“I miss him too,” Heidi tells him.

The sun begins to rise.

**Author's Note:**

> Well. If you made it through that, I'm very, very sorry.
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed this fic! If you have any questions, liked the fic, have feedback or noticed any mistakes, post in the comments below, or at my tumblr [here](http://princedrewwrites.tumblr.com). I'm on there pretty often now. Or, if you just liked the fic and don't want to say anything, just leave a kudos. There's no pressure either way.


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